Three months. Before she had even arrived at the compound.
“What triggered it?”
“Best I can tell? The investment deal with TalkToMe.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “The timeline matches perfectly. He started setting up his infrastructure right after you announced the partnership with Derek’s company.”
“He said the city would corrupt us.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He’s been opposing modernization since before I became Alpha.”
“Opposing it publicly while secretly using it against you.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “Hypocrite.”
“That’s not the word I’d use.”
“The word you’d use isn’t suitable for polite company.” She reached over to rest her hand on his thigh, and some of the tension in his body eased. “What are you going to do?”
“Call a Council meeting. Present the evidence. Let him condemn himself.”
“And if he doesn’t? If he denies everything?”
He bared his fangs, his wolf’s savage instincts rising to the surface. “Then I challenge him. Alpha’s prerogative. He’saccused me of being unfit to lead. I have every right to answer that accusation directly.”
“You mean fight him.”
“I mean end him.”
She was quiet for a long moment.
“Is that what you want?” she asked finally. “To kill him?”
“Want?” He forced himself to consider the question. “I don’t know. My father considered him a friend. Before this he served the pack faithfully. But he’s also threatened everything I’m trying to build. He threatened you, even if only indirectly.” His jaw set. “If it comes to it, I won’t hesitate.”
“I know.” She squeezed his thigh gently. “It’s just… I’ve never been part of something like this before. Politics back home meant passive-aggressive emails and stolen parking spaces. Not literal fights to the death.”
“Having second thoughts?”
“About you? Never.” Her voice was firm, certain. “About werewolf conflict resolution? Maybe a little. But I knew what I was signing up for.”
“Did you?”
“I did my research.” A hint of her usual tartness crept into her tone. “I’m very thorough.”
He laughed despite himself—a real laugh, surprised out of him by her absurdity.
“Of course you did.”
“Three separate databases. Four academic papers. And a very disturbing Reddit thread that I’m choosing to believe was fictional.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“You really don’t.”
They lapsed into comfortable silence again. Outside, the landscape shifted from rolling hills to the first hints of mountain terrain. Home was getting closer.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“For what?”
“For being here. For not running when you learned what he’d done. For…” He struggled to find words for the tangle of emotions in his chest. “For being exactly what I need, even when I didn’t know I needed it.”
Her hand found his where it rested on the gear shift.
